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Reviewing debut run of Introduction to Cyber Security MOOC

The debut presentation of Introduction to Cyber Security MOOC came to an end this week. This 8-week MOOC was developed with the support of the UK National Cyber Security Programme and has been certified as a awareness level cyber security course by the CESG Certified Training programme. Over the next few weeks I will be working with colleagues to review the lessons learned from this first run and making the necessary changes to ensure that the next presentation goes smoothly.

Some high-level numbers on the first presentation, as of the end of the Week 8 of the course, are as follows:

Registered Learners: 24,245

Returning learners: 15,449

Active Learners: 12,977 (~84%)

Fully participated: 3,692 (~24%)

The percentages for active and fully participated learners has been calculated based on the number of returning learners rather than the total registrations. 'Active' means that a learner is still progressing through the content and marking activities as 'completed', whereas 'Fully Participated' means that a learner has completed more than 50% of the content and attempted all the tests. Based on these numbers, and the general feedback from learners I would judge this first presentation to be a success. It is nice to see this confirmed in two reviews written by learners who completed the course:

SC Magazine Review:"... If you want an introduction to the subject that provides an overview or to improve your own personal information security, it is an excellent course – enjoyable, informative, engaging, and authoritative ..."

Sync NI News:"... The course surpassed my expectations to be honest. It wasn’t patronising, while it assumed no prior knowledge it explored more complex aspects of cyber security explaining them in an engaging way ..."

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